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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26608969">Hineni</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnabelleVeal/pseuds/AnnabelleVeal'>AnnabelleVeal</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Antisemitism, Assimilation, Canon-Typical Alcoholism, Character Study, Community: daysofawesome, Developing Relationship, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Identity Issues, Jewish Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Jewish Character, Judaism, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Canon, Somewhat Redeemed Booker | Sebastien le Livre</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:47:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,602</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26608969</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnabelleVeal/pseuds/AnnabelleVeal</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The first forgery Booker ever made was a new identity for himself as a gentile.</p><p>Wherein Booker loses his family, reconnects with his heritage, and maybe finds something a little like faith.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Booker | Sebastien le Livre &amp; James Copley</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>101</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>299</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>DaysOfAwesome 2020 (5781)</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Hineni</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So, celebrating the High Holidays this year is weird and it’s been giving me a lot of ~feelings~ about Judaism and this is what my brain spat out in response. Written for Days of Awesome 2020, mostly during Zoom Rosh Hashanah services.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <em>If you are the dealer, let me out of the game<br/>If you are the healer, I'm broken and lame<br/>If thine is the glory, mine must be the shame</em>
  </p>
  <p>—Leonard Cohen, You Want It Darker</p>
</blockquote><p> </p><p>Booker's mother had given birth to three children before him, but none had survived more than a few hours. When Booker came out pink and plump and screaming, she knew that she would do whatever it took to keep him in this world. Her husband said it was <em>bubbe meise</em>, nothing more than old superstitions, but she refused to let the name pass her lips—to even so much as think it—until on his eighth day they took him to the mohel and she breathed out in a sigh of relief, "<em>Sébastien."</em></p><p>---</p><p>One night soon after the fallout in London, Booker gets very drunk and he calls Copley because they never said he couldn’t, and he has always understood the value of a loophole.</p><p>"You know what I think the worst part is?" he says, his voice sounding ragged and raw even to his own ears. "In the end I betrayed them for nothing. All our big talk of ending disease, ending suffering, and it will never amount to anything. Just like everything else I've ever done with this miserable existence." </p><p>"<em>Whoever saves one life, saves the entire world</em>," Copley says. "Your work has saved a lot of lives, Booker. I know you don't see it, but you <em>have</em> made a difference."</p><p>Booker swallows thickly. "You left off the rest of it, though: 'He who destroys one life, destroys the entire world.' I've killed a lot of people, too. So which is it? If you do the math, does it even come close to balancing out?"</p><p>"I don't know," Copley says, before pausing like he's choosing his words carefully. "What I do know is that you get to decide what you do next. All you—all <em>we</em>—can do is keep moving forward and try to make our future actions tip the scales."</p><p>A few months later he is walking (stumbling) home from the bar on a cool, crisp September morning when he sees the people streaming into an unassuming stone building that he’d never noticed before. He pauses for a long time outside the wrought iron fence, long enough to make the two police officers flanking the gate start to shift nervously, before he joins the throng and moves inside. </p><p>There's a young man at the door who asks him something about a ticket, but Booker just presses a thick stack of euros into his hand and the kid swallows whatever objection he was about to make. "<em>G'mar tov</em>," he says, and passes Booker a machzor and a kippah.</p><p>He makes it until the first recitation of the Viddui.</p><p>He doesn't know what he had expected, but having his sins laid out so clearly before him is more than he can bear. The words on the page shift and blur and all he can see is Joe and Nicky strapped to those gurneys, Andy's warm, slick blood coating his fingers, the raw grief in her eyes. He pushes his way out of the sanctuary and onto the street, making it halfway back to his apartment before realizing he is still clutching the machzor.</p><p>That evening when he returns to the bar, he takes a different route.</p><p>---</p><p>His father had been a money lender—the only profession available to him—and Booker had always assumed it would be his path as well. Then emancipation came, and along with it the tantalizing prospect of other opportunities. The reality, however, was more complicated, and he was forced to turn to different means to get by.  As a boy he had learned how to read and write by copying Torah portions over into French, and Booker found these skills were highly transferable. The very first forgery he ever made was a new identity for himself as a gentile. Later, he would think it was maybe the greatest gift he’d given to his sons, ensuring them a freedom he’d never had. </p><p>---</p><p>Booker stuffs the machzor into the back of a closet and tries not to give any more thought to what happened at the synagogue. He remembers enough to know that you’re supposed to atone to people before you can atone to God. He’s pretty sure the people he has wronged are even less likely to accept his amends than any god would be. </p><p>There is a difference, he thinks, between absolution and redemption. Absolution is a clean slate, the chance to start over. Redemption is deserving it.</p><p>---</p><p>For all that he had tried to craft a new self, Noémie saw right through him. The courtship was sweet and quick, and they were married a few months later in the Rabbi's house underneath a tallit that had belonged to Noémie’s father. When Booker smashed the glass, her laugh was as clear and bright as the tinkling of the shards beneath his foot. They moved to Marseille and he did his best to provide. Their first son died of the measles before his second birthday, but they were blessed with two more and for a time they were very happy.</p><p>Noémie had grown up in Alsace, her upbringing much more traditional than his own. She was the one who had insisted on teaching the boys the daily prayers, on lighting candles every Friday night, on tossing a little piece of dough into the coals each time she carefully braided the challah. </p><p>"They will never see us as truly French if we keep clinging to the old ways," he said to her once.</p><p>"Why should I care what they think?" she had replied, with fire in her eyes. "We live and we work and we pay our taxes. Isn't that enough? Why must we give them any more?"</p><p>"I just think it would be better for the boys, easier maybe, if they were not burdened with all this"—he waved his hand, searching for the word to convey everything he thought of his birthright—“<em>history</em>."</p><p>She gave him a sad look and took his face between her palms, gentle, like she was cradling something precious. "It is never a burden to be who you are, Sébastien."</p><p>The next winter she was dead.</p><p>---</p><p>He finds himself back in London and he decides to go see Copley. He doesn't let himself think too long about why. When Copley opens the door, there is a yahrzeit candle burning on the table behind him. Booker has about a dozen questions, but settles on, "Should I come back another day?"</p><p>Copley shakes his head, steps aside and motions for him to come in. "Actually, I’d prefer the company."</p><p>He moves across the room to a well-stocked bar cart and gets out a (very good) bottle of whiskey. He pours them both generous helpings and Booker readily accepts the glass.</p><p>They sit on the stiff sofa and drink in silence. If Copley wonders what he is doing there, he doesn’t mention it. The doors to the patio are open, and Booker can hear the muffled sounds of traffic, people shouting and laughing on the street. </p><p>"I didn't know you were Jewish,” he finally says.</p><p>"I'm not, officially,” Copley replies, “but my wife was. It's the anniversary today, so—" he gestures to the candle.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he says, and he means it. He realizes that Copley didn’t ask him how he knew. "You’re not surprised. About me," he adds, clarifying. "When did you figure it out?" </p><p>Copley glances up towards his study, where Booker knows he still keeps his boards full of research. "There are some, shall we say, <em>inconsistencies</em> in your history. I had a hunch and Andy confirmed it." Something in Booker's chest clenches at the mention of her name. He takes a long drink to keep from asking how she is.</p><p>"I have wondered, though,” Copley continues, “what your original surname was. I've never been able to find it. I know it's not le Livre—there’s no evidence of that family line before you."</p><p>"Lévy," he says, for the first time in many, many years. "My mother used to say that we were <em>les gens du livre</em>—People of the Book. At the time I thought I was being very clever."</p><p>"Did you have to change it because of the <em>Décret Infâme</em>?"</p><p>"No," Booker shakes his head, "It was years before that. It was just easier, I guess."</p><p>Copley nods like he understands. "My grandparents were subsistence farmers in Nigeria under British colonial rule. It only took two generations to get to <em>James Copley, CIA</em>. Assimilation can be one hell of a drug."</p><p>They are quiet for a moment. On the table in front of them, the candle burns low. “Would you say the Mourner’s Kaddish with me?” Copley asks softly, watching the flame flicker as a breeze drifts through.</p><p>“Aren’t there supposed to be more of us for that?”</p><p>“Technically, yes. Technically I would need to be Jewish, too. But she was never so bothered about the rules, and...I would like to say it.” </p><p>Copley looks up at him then, and Booker knows all too well the pain he sees in his face. He swallows hard and nods, digs deep into the recesses of memory and starts, “<em>Yitgadal v’yitkadash</em>…”</p><p>---</p><p>His father died in the Revolution fighting for a country that barely acknowledged him as human; Booker had no intention of making the same mistake. As they continued their never-ending advance on the retreating Russian forces, every town they encountered abandoned and burned, it hadn't been hard to decide to run.</p><p>He spared half a thought for what would happen if they caught him. He could pass well enough most of the time, but he was not so naïve as to think that they didn't know who—<em>what</em>—he was. He knew also the inevitable condemnation and accusations of dual loyalty that would follow. Knew the irony of it all was that he had only ever been loyal to his family and himself.</p><p>It was Guillaume who eventually caught up to him. Guillaume who he had fought and ate and slept beside for the past six months. Who told charming stories of his infant daughter and gave his dinner scraps to stray dogs, and who on nights when it was too cold to sleep talked about the farm he dreamt of owning near Lyon. </p><p>Guillaume who now had his boot pressing hard between Booker's shoulder blades, crushing against his spine, as he spat on his face and called him a <em>filthy coward Jew rat </em>along with all the worst things Booker had ever believed himself to be during his darkest moments.</p><p>When they put the noose around his neck, he didn't say the <em>Shema</em>, just squeezed his eyes shut and pictured the faces of his wife and sons. </p><p>---</p><p>Winter comes on forcefully, and he is miserable with the cold and the memories it brings. Shivering in his drafty apartment and preparing again to drink himself into a stupor in order to sleep through the night, he thinks maybe it’s time to get out of Paris for a while. </p><p>Three days later he arrives at a small kibbutz just south of Be’er Sheva. The sun is shining and the air is warm and dry, and he feels the relief that only comes from being somewhere that is not tainted by his past.</p><p>---</p><p>They had found him in Russia—Andy, Nicky, and Joe. They tried to explain it: what they were, how it worked, but it just sounded like a fairytale to him. He wanted no part of it and told them as much. They let him go, but not before Andy had given him a long, piercing look and said, “You can’t run from this forever.”</p><p>He didn’t tell her that he’d spent his whole first life running, he could spend this next one the same way.</p><p>It took another thirty years before Booker made his way back to them. When Jean-Pierre died, he sat shiva. His last remaining son had been a stranger to him by the end, so transformed by his anger and pain. He had no idea if this was what he would have wanted, but he knew it's what Noémie would have done and that was enough. At the end of the seven days, he pulled himself up off the floor and went to the cemetery. He gave the caretaker a hefty sum and instructions to place the headstone in a month. Then he left Marseille and never returned—still running, after all.</p><p>---</p><p>On the kibbutz he keeps mostly to himself. He works in the garden and the laundry room, and he spends his free time reading outside. He becomes a bit of a curiosity—the sad, quiet Frenchman who takes all his meals alone in his room and hums to the plants in the greenhouse.</p><p>It’s late afternoon and he is lying in a hammock, thumbing through a battered old paperback. There is a boy playing nearby, maybe eleven or twelve, practicing juggling a football. He kicks it a little too hard and it arcs through the air towards Booker who reaches out and snags it in one hand without looking up from his book.</p><p>The boy lets out an appreciative whistle and says, “Nice catch!” He jogs over and Booker gives him a half smile as he rolls the ball towards him. He reminds Booker a little of his middle son, Théo, when he was about the same age—a mess of too-long limbs and boundless energy.</p><p>“You’re new here, right? What’s your name?”</p><p>“Booker.”</p><p>“That’s not a real name,” the boy replies, wrinkling his nose.</p><p>Booker shrugs. “It’s what people call me.”</p><p>“I’m Itai,’” he says, starting to fidget with the ball again, bouncing it on his foot. “I heard you’re from France, is that why your Hebrew is so bad?”</p><p>Booker laughs. He wants to say that his Hebrew is bad because it was still only a ritual language when he learned it, because he hasn't used it in two hundred years, because he has buried this part of himself so deep and for so long that it may take the next two hundred years to dig it back out again, but instead he just says, "Yeah, I guess so."</p><p>Itai watches him for a moment. "Are you a spy?"</p><p>"What do you think?" He keeps his face as blank as possible, tries hard not to break as Itai studies him with an almost comical intensity.</p><p>"I'm not sure," he finally concludes, skeptical. "My mom says you're having a midlife crisis."</p><p>Booker doubts he's even close to midway through this life, but other than that he supposes it's not so far from the truth. "Who's your mom?" he asks.</p><p>“Orli Haddad. She’s the head cook here.”</p><p>As if on cue, a woman sticks her head out of the doors to the kitchen and shouts, “Itai! Don't you have chores to be doing?"</p><p>Itai rolls his eyes and takes off with a wave, kicking his ball ahead of him, as the woman—Orli—crosses the courtyard.</p><p>"I hope he wasn’t bothering you too much. He is...a lot right now."</p><p>Booker shifts, sitting up and turning so his feet are on the ground. "I don't mind. He seems like a good kid."</p><p>"Yes, he is." She smiles, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "We're having Shabbat dinner soon. Will you join us this time?"</p><p>He tells himself he agrees just for the wine, but that evening as he sits at the long table in the dining hall and watches Orli lighting the candles, he has to admit that there is a comfort in this. It's nice to be around other people again, but more than that, it's familiar in a way that so few things in the modern world are. The words of the blessings are older than he is, and they remind him of a place and time he has spent so long trying to forget. Just for tonight, he gives himself permission to remember.</p><p>---</p><p>They were heading towards Crimea and had stopped to spend the night in a cramped single room of a boarding house. The close quarters were making him antsy, and as Booker got progressively drunker, his mood turned dark. The question had been burning on his tongue for a while before it finally slipped out. "Why us?"</p><p>"To be honest, we don't know," Nicky said. "Does it matter so much the why? It is a gift, and we get to decide what to do with it."</p><p>"It's a lousy fucking gift," Booker muttered, forgoing his glass and drinking straight from the bottle instead.</p><p>Nicky gave him a sympathetic look. It made his skin itch. "None of us asked for this, but we can use it to do some good—to make the world a better place."</p><p><em>Tikkun olam, </em>Booker thought, the words coming to him unbidden from somewhere deep inside. He mashed them back down.</p><p>"It helps if you can find some kind of meaning in it all. Some purpose," Nicky continued.</p><p>"What's your purpose?" He took another swig and watched as Nicky's eyes unconsciously cut across the room to where Joe was sleeping, and he suddenly wasn't very interested in hearing whatever was going to come out of his mouth next.</p><p>"None of this means anything," he said, pushing back from the small table with more force than needed, his chair wobbling as he stood on shaky legs. "It's just one more shitty thing that's happened in a long line of shitty things."</p><p>A month later they had made it to an abandoned farmhouse near the edge of the Black Sea. It was one of the nicer places they had taken him these past few years, even if the busted windows let in more of the cool fall air than he would like. There was a small kitchen and he was working on preparing dinner when Joe joined him, leaning his hip against the counter and just watching.</p><p>"What?" he asked, not meaning for it to come out quite so snappish.</p><p>Joe raised his eyebrows, but let it go. "You never talk about her. Your wife," he added, when Booker looked confused. "If you wanted to, I'm here to listen."</p><p>"What is there to say?" He had started chopping carrot coins for the New Year without thinking. When he noticed, he grabbed an onion and some celery to make a mirepoix instead. "We loved each other very much and then she died horribly, just like they all did." He added the vegetables to the pot on the stove and let them begin to simmer.</p><p>"There's a prayer your people say for the dead, right? Would it help to say it?"</p><p>"I thought you lot were 'my people' now."</p><p>Joe looked at him sadly and Booker had to look away. "We are, but it's alright to hold onto some parts of your old life. The parts that make you whole. You are still <em>you</em>, Sébastien."</p><p>For a moment he was transported back to another kitchen, years ago, and he could feel the fleeting ghostly memory of warm, loving hands on his cheeks before he snapped back to the present.  If Joe noticed the slight tremor when he gave his arm a comforting squeeze, he had the grace to not mention it. "That's too much butter," he said, sneaking a look over Booker's shoulder into the pot.</p><p>"No such thing," Booker replied, the exchange easy and familiar, and he allowed himself the tiniest flicker of hope.</p><p>---</p><p>Booker learns that Orli is forty-five and has been trying to divorce her husband for nearly a decade. "He is not a bad man,” she says, “but we were very young when we married. I didn't know what I wanted, or that a secular life was even a possibility."</p><p>They are sitting on top of a picnic table overlooking the desert, trading a cigarette and his flask of vodka back and forth.</p><p>"I don't know if he withholds the <em>get</em> to punish me, or because he wants me back. Maybe both. With the children it is...complicated." She trails off, looking faraway for a moment. Itai is the only child he’s ever seen with her here on the kibbutz. He waits for her to continue, but she just takes a long drag off of the cigarette and exhales, tendrils of smoke escaping into the dark sky. "You are married?" she asks eventually, gesturing at his ring.</p><p>"I was," he says. He takes another drink and pointedly does not elaborate.</p><p>"Children?"</p><p>He sighs. "It's also...complicated."</p><p>Orli laughs, and it’s a thin, tired sound. "Isn't it always." They are quiet for a time, each staring off into the night, lost in their own thoughts. "Itai thinks you were in the French Foreign Legion,” she says, breaking the silence. She studies him for a moment, eyes searching his face, and he finds he doesn't mind the scrutiny. "Did you serve in the army?"</p><p>"The IDF? No."</p><p>She nods. "But you have seen war," she says, and it's a statement, not a question.</p><p>He tries to imagine what it would be like to take her to bed, how it would feel to have his body come alive beneath another person's touch again. It’s tempting, but only in a distant, abstract way. Eventually she says goodnight, kissing him sweetly on the cheek before going back to her room. </p><p>He sits there for a long time after she leaves. As he watches the moon make its slow transit across the sky, he thinks about the story of Moses—how he wandered for forty years in the desert only to be unable to enter the promised land because of a moment of weakness. He thinks about a hundred years alone, and Andy bleeding out at his feet. He knows then that whatever he has been looking for, he isn’t going to find it here. </p><p>---</p><p>Booker had always been prone to despair, even before his first death, but sometimes when he saw just how little humanity's baser elements seemed to change across the years, it overwhelmed him. So often it felt like no matter how much good they tried to do, it would never be enough, could never stem the flow of evil that wove its way through history. </p><p>As the years dragged by, he had begun to see a look in Andy's eyes that told him she agreed. He wasn't a warrior the way the rest of them were. He had never sought out the fight; for him it had always just been a means of survival. He was not sure when he decided that even survival wasn't worth fighting for.</p><p>---</p><p>Booker gets a flight to Gatwick, and when he shows up on Copley's doorstep, he doesn't seem surprised, simply greets him with a soft expression and invites him in.</p><p>He takes out some leftover curry and heats it on the stove while he rummages through the fridge and pulls together a quick salad. "I haven’t heard from you in a while," he says, not accusingly, but curious.  </p><p>"I went to Israel. I just got back today."</p><p>"Did it help?"</p><p>Booker looks off for a moment. "It was…nice," he finally says, "But it didn't feel like coming home or anything as easy as that." He doesn’t say that sitting here at Copley’s breakfast bar—watching him push up the sleeves of his sweater before dicing some overripe tomatoes—is the closest he has felt to home in years.</p><p>---</p><p>It was 1940 and they were holed up in a crumbling barn outside of Vilnius. He worked through the night, hand cramping as he wrote as fast as he could. Andy found him in the early hours of the morning, candle burnt low, a stack of forged transit visas to his left and an even taller stack of blank papers still in front of him. She studied him for a long moment, her expression full of something like sympathy, before she said, "You know we can't risk it. I won't lose anyone else."</p><p>He kept writing anyway.</p><p>Joe and Nicky woke a few hours later, and as they all packed up to go, Andy said, "I think we should get out of Europe for a while," in a tone that left no room for argument. </p><p>When their train pulled away from the station, Booker let the flap on his satchel hang open and watched as the wind whipped the pages out of the window and into the air. Sheets of paper drifted slowly down to the ground like falling ash. Maybe some would make it into the right hands.</p><p>Andy gave him a hard look, but she didn't close the window.</p><p>They spent the better part of the sixties traveling through South America tracking down former SS members, and he knew it was her way of apologizing.</p><p>---</p><p>“Can I ask you a question?” </p><p>They’ve finished what has unofficially become their weekly dinner and moved to the plush armchairs in Copley’s living room. It is twilight outside, and the room is illuminated only by the gentle yellow glow of a lamp in the corner. Booker is slouched down low, his head resting against the back of the chair, nursing a glass of scotch. He tilts his head towards Copley and watches his throat move as he takes a sip of his drink before he answers, “Yes, of course.”</p><p>“Do you believe in God?”</p><p>Copley pauses, considering. “I suppose what I believe in isn’t really God, so much as the idea that there is a God-shaped hole in everyone—the deep empty part that reaches out yearning for a purpose. I believe that place in each of us creates the <em>essence</em> of God. It is the wanting and the striving that we use to make meaning.”</p><p>“Good answer,” Booker says, as he gives a nod and a raise of his glass.</p><p>Copley turns to meet his gaze and smiles warmly. “May I ask <em>you </em>a question?”</p><p>“I am an open book,” he says, and then cringes inwardly because <em>shit</em>, he might be a little more drunk than he realized.</p><p>But Copley just gives him an indulgent look and continues, “Before everything happened with Merrick, if you wanted out so badly, why didn’t you just…stop? Why stay with the team and keep going on all those jobs?”</p><p>Booker hesitates, the flip, easy answer catching on his tongue. Instead, he turns the question over in his mind, forcing himself to really think about it. “When I was young,” he begins slowly, “my mother would tell me that we have an obligation to make a better world. That you’re not required to finish the work, but you can’t give up either. I guess I stayed because some part of me still believes she was right.”</p><p>“Now <em>that</em> is a good answer,” Copley replies, his voice fond as he echoes Booker’s words.</p><p>There is a moment where he thinks Copley might lean over and kiss him, and he finds he is disappointed when he doesn’t. He files that information away for later.</p><p>They drink in companionable silence until it is broken by the shrill sound of Copley's phone alarm. He glances down at it as he shuts it off. "Ah, right. I had almost forgotten about that." Booker looks at him questioningly and he says, "There is a meeting I go to—a support group. For people who have lost their spouses. I don't suppose you'd like to join me?"</p><p>"Why do I get the feeling this was a setup?"</p><p>Copley smiles. "Not a setup, I promise. But maybe serendipity. You wouldn't have to say anything—many people just listen. They usually have pastries, too. Proper ones, not the shit packaged kind from Tesco."</p><p>Booker laughs at that. <em>What the hell,</em> he thinks, and he throws back the rest of his drink. "Alright, but only for the pastries."</p><p>---</p><p>Towards the end of the 20th century, they had been in New York volunteering in the hospitals and caring for the skeletal young men with strange rashes and mysterious cancer that no one else would touch. It was late in the day when the patient Booker was sitting with turned to him, his eyes glassy and unfocused, and said, "Dad? I didn't think you would come!" and Booker had taken the boy's hand whispering, "Yes, son. I'm here. I love you very much and I am so proud of you," and as the boy relaxed back against the bed, he thought <em>dayenu</em>—it would be enough.</p><p>---</p><p>This time, he buys his ticket online beforehand. He brings the purloined machzor along with him, too. Inside the sanctuary, Booker settles in the back corner, neatly sandwiched between two exits—just in case. </p><p>When they come to the <em>Unetanah Tokef</em>, with its litany of ways to die, half of which he's already done, he tries to let it fill him with wonder instead of grief. He looks around at the sea of faces, all these people fervently praying to survive the upcoming year, and for once being written again in the Book of Life doesn't feel like a punishment. Maybe that means something.</p><p>It is late afternoon when the service ends, and as he walks back along the quiet streets to his apartment, his phone buzzes with a text. He digs it out of his coat pocket and sees the message from an unlisted number.</p><p>
  <em>Shanah tovah  -N</em>
</p><p>He stares at the screen, as a strange feeling washes over him.</p><p>A moment later when he gets another text from a different unknown number, this one just a string of apple and honey emojis, he realizes the feeling is hope.</p><p>He thinks about <em>teshuvah</em>, and how it doesn't actually mean repentance, but rather return. He might go astray again and again, but as long as he can change course, he will be able to come back. It may not be quick, but what does he have if not time?</p><p>---</p><p>"I'm leaving Paris for a while," he says without preamble when Copley answers the phone.</p><p>"Oh? Where will you go?"</p><p>"I'm heading to Marseille today." He aims for breezy, but he knows that Copley hears the weight behind his words. He takes a breath, steels himself, "Then I was thinking about London."</p><p>"I think that's a very good idea," Copley says evenly, but Booker can hear the warmth in his voice.</p><p>When he ends the call, he is still smiling.</p><p>---</p><p>The young woman in the front office tells him apologetically that the records of the old Jewish cemetery were lost sometime in the late 1800s. She thinks it may have been built over, or possibly the markers had been moved by a local synagogue, but she couldn’t say for certain. Booker thanks her for her time and heads into the grounds anyway. He wanders among the mausoleums and elaborate memorials, interspersed with simpler headstones worn smooth with time. </p><p>He finds himself in a far back corner, the graves here appearing much older than anything else nearby. There is a tree beside a low, crumbling wall that catches his eye. It's taller now, but there is a unique knot about a foot above the roots that he definitely remembers. He searches carefully through the overgrown grass but doesn't find any sign of what he's looking for. </p><p>Eventually he gives up and sits at the base of the tree, leaning back against its sturdy trunk. His fingers sift through the dirt by his knee and he gathers a handful of small stones. He builds a little tower, three for the base and another on top—one for each of them. He whispers their names in turn and lets his words float away on the wind.</p><p>---</p><p>Booker thinks that maybe he will never see the World to Come. He doesn't know when he will be free, when he will be allowed to move on from this life. Maybe <em>that </em>is the meaning—learning to accept the here and now. His world to come will be the one that he builds with his own hands piece by piece each time he chooses to do right, to do good. </p><p>---</p><p>He walks along the narrow winding side roads as he makes his way to the coast, and he is amazed at what has and hasn't changed in nearly two centuries. The air is hot and muggy, and his shirt is plastered to his body with sweat by the time he gets to the beach. He peels it off, glad that he'd had the foresight to change into his swim trunks at the hotel. </p><p>He wanders down to where the waves are lapping at the sand. The water is shockingly cold when he first steps in, but he keeps going. He wades out farther and farther, water coming to his shins, his hips, his waist, until finally he stands with only his head above the swells. Booker closes his eyes and sinks down.</p><p>He tucks his knees to his chest and lets the water embrace him. Bobbing in the current, suspended in time and space, he exhales a stream of bubbles as his lips form around familiar words—</p><p>
  <em>Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech haolam, shehecheyanu v'kiyimanu v'higiyanu laz'man hazeh</em>
</p><p>He pushes back up, breaking through the surface and panting for breath, and he blinks at the sun shining bright on his face. <em>Here I am</em>, he thinks, as he looks at the sea stretching out sparkling and clear before him, endless with possibilities. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>The blessing Booker says at the end is the Shehecheyanu. It is traditionally said to celebrate special occasions or new experiences, and it gives thanks for being kept alive and brought to this moment.</p><p>Hineni means “here I am” in Hebrew, but might be better understood as “I am ready” or a statement of emotional and spiritual presence. </p><p>I've tried my best to be historically accurate, but it's been a while since my Modern Jewish History course in undergrad so please forgive any mistakes (though do tell me in the comments and I will try to fix it!)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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